Donny Moore Leaving EA: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

You may or may not have heard the news that Donny Moore, the man behind every single EA Sports Madden NFL rating for the past 16 years is retiring, he announced a few days ago on Twitter.

“After much thought & consideration, I have chosen to step away from [EA Sports] & announce my retirement as the Madden Ratings Czar as I have opted to pursue other interests,” said Moore.

Moore joined Tiburon in the late ’90s, and worked his way up to the position of “ratings czar” — yes that’s his official title. Where he assigned ratings to all off the players in NFL in about 40 different categories! When Tiburon was asked how Madden ratings will be done going forward they responded:

“There’s a team who collectively ensures authenticity across players, teams, gear and more. They’ll continue to use the same tools, database and resources that Donny used to make decisions about ratings changes based on what happens during the NFL season.”

There is always a silver lining to every dark cloud so here is our take on the good, bad and ugly of Donny Moore leaving EA Sports.

The Good:

This would be a great opportunity for madden to move from a manual rating system done by one person to dynamically generated rating system like the one NBA Live uses with Synergy Sports. Where ratings are directly determined by stats and data. So based upon last years and the projected performance determined by combine and college stats then pretty much everything else is purely data driven and less based on opinions. Brent Grimes went to the probowl this past year but statistically he’s one of the lower rated corners according to Footballoutsiders.com.

The Bad:

Moore had a connection to the community and players as well giving direct feedback on this ratings. He appeared on ESPN, was a source of all things madden player ratings for well over a decade. This will be a big loss as players will no longer than a pincushion for all of their madden frustration and vitrol lol. Who will be the next target at Tiburon? Kolbe and Rex…you better watchout.

The Ugly:

Madden has fallen behind NBA2K in player ratings. Ratings that should amke each player feel like an individual and not just a set of numbers. How can we make Patrick Peterson play differently Richard Sherman? Both good corners but they play completely different games in different systems. That I will discuss this in another article so stay tuned!

A fan of sports game since his first EA sports title Madden 93. "The Natural" has been an active member of the Sports Gaming community since joining the MWS in 2003. Having participated and won in the Madden challenge and countless other tournaments earlier in his career he has moved on to more of a sim style over the years. He is always looking to do what he can to push simulation style gaming forward.